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Rebels retreat from Libya oil port under attack

Moammar Gadhafi's ground forces recaptured a strategic oil town Wednesday and were close to taking a second, making new inroads in beating back a rebel advance toward the capital Tripoli. Western powers kept up the pressure to force Gadhafi out with new airstrikes to weaken his military, hints that they may arm the opposition and intense negotiations behind the scenes to find a country to give haven to Libya's leader of more than 40 years.

Airstrikes have neutralized Gadhafi's air force and pounded his army, but those ground forces remain far better armed, trained and organized than the opposition. The rebels, with few weapons more powerful than rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns, can attack targets 3 to 4 miles (5 to 6 kilometers) away, but the loyalists' heavy weapons have a range of 12 miles (20 kilometers).

That disparity was obvious as government forces pushed back rebels who just two days earlier had been closing in on the strategic city of Sirte, Gadhafi's hometown and a bastion of support for the longtime leader. Under heavy shelling, rebels retreated from Bin Jawwad on Tuesday and from the oil port of Ras Lanouf on Wednesday.

Gadhafi's forces were shelling Brega, another important oil city to the east. A rebel soldier, Col. Abdullah Hadi, said he expected the loyalists to enter Brega by Wednesday night.

"I ask NATO for just one aircraft to push them back. All we need is air cover and we could do this. They should be helping us," Hadi said.

NATO planes flew over the zone where the heaviest fighting was under way earlier Wednesday and an Associated Press reporter at the scene heard explosions, but it was unclear whether any airstrikes hit the area. U.S. Marine Corps Capt. Clint Gebke, a spokesman for the NATO operation aboard the USS Mount Whitney, said he could not confirm any specific strikes but Western aircraft were engaging pro-Gadhafi forces in areas including Sirte and Misrata, the rebels' last significant holdout in western Libya.

The retreat Wednesday looked like a mad scramble: Pickup trucks, with mattresses and boxes tied on, driving east at 100 mph (160 kilometers per hour).

Many rebels regrouped east of Brega at the green, arching western gate of Ajdabiya, sharing water, dates and tuna sandwiches on a sandy, windswept plain next to two burned-out tanks and two burned-out cars from the airstrikes last week that drove Gadhafi's forces back. Three anti-aircraft guns mounted in back of pickup trucks pointed west down the road.

"There's something strange about the way he attacked us today," said Abdullah Abdel-Jalil, a 31-year-old ambulance driver. "The Grad rockets, the tanks, the quantity of it all, he's stronger than we thought. It's way too intense."

Dozens of civilians were seen heading north to Benghazi, and streets on the western side of Ajdabiya were deserted and silent. Among the rebels, the lack of air support was a common lament.

"We don't know why they're not here," said Moftah Mohammed, a 36-year-old rebel soldier. "Our forces are mainly on the side of the main road. We've heard Gadhafi's forces are pushing deep into the desert" in an attempt to head off rebel forces. "We don't want to be stuck in the middle of that."

Mohammed, however, thought loyalist forces would stop pursuing the rebels. "Gadhafi aims to take back Ras Lanouf and Brega because he's running out of oil. I think he'll stop there," he said.

As Gadhafi's forces push rebels toward their de-facto capital Benghazi, some 140 miles (220 kilometers) northeast of Brega, pressure is growing for NATO members and other supporters of the air campaign to do more.

Prime Minister David Cameron said Britain believes a legal loophole could allow nations to supply weapons to Libya's rebels — but stressed the U.K. has not decided whether it will offer assistance to the rebels.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Tuesday that Washington also believes it would be legal to give the rebels weapons. As to whether the country would do so, President Barack Obama told NBC, "I'm not ruling it out, but I'm also not ruling it in."

France, one of the strongest backers of international intervention in Libya, believes arming rebels would require a new U.N. resolution; the existing one includes an arms embargo. But Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said, "We are ready to discuss it with our partners."

Under the U.N. resolution authorizing necessary measures to protect civilians, nations supplying weapons would need to be satisfied they would be used only to defend civilians — not to take the offensive to Gadhafi's forces.

Cameron's spokesman Steve Field said British and other diplomats were involved in negotiations with the rebel leadership in Benghazi partly to gauge if the opposition would be trustworthy allies.

"We are in the process of talking to those people and learning more about their intentions," Field told reporters.

NATO officials and diplomats said the alliance had given no consideration to arming the rebels. Any alliance involvement would require support from all 28 members, a difficult task, and an alliance official who could not be named under standing regulations said NATO "wouldn't even consider doing anything else" without a new U.N. resolution.

NATO is in the process of taking over control of the airstrikes, which began as a U.S.-led operation. Diplomats said they have given approval for the commander of the NATO operation, Canadian Gen. Charles Bouchard, to announce a handover on Thursday.

Another possibility to help the rebels is to ramp up airstrikes, which so far have been conducted with the stated goal of helping civilians. But even the airstrikes conducted so far have been criticized by some world powers.

Chinese President Hu Jintao called for an immediate cease-fire and admonished French President Nicolas Sarkozy, an ardent proponent of the bombing campaign, at a diplomatic meeting in Beijing. Hu called for peaceful efforts to restore stability, expressed China's concern that Libya may end up divided and said force would complicate a negotiated settlement.

Diplomats were attempting to persuade Gadhafi to leave without military force.

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said negotiations on securing Gadhafi's exit were being conducted with "absolute discretion" and that there were options on the table that hadn't yet been formalized.

"What is indispensable is that there be countries that are willing to welcome Gadhafi and his family, obviously to end this situation which otherwise could go on for some time," he said.

But the Italian diplomat insisted immunity for Gadhafi was not an option. "We cannot promise him a 'safe-conduct' pass," he stressed.

Libyan Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa visited Tunisia briefly, but there was no word if this was linked to the secret talks.

Uganda appeared to be the first country to publicly offer Gadhafi refuge. The spokesman for Uganda's president, Tamale Mirundi, told the AP on Wednesday that he would be welcome there. Uganda, however, is a signatory to the statute that created the International Criminal Court, whose chief prosecutor is deciding whether to seek an indictment against Gadhafi.

The group Human Rights Watch said Gadhafi's forces laid land mines in the eastern outskirts of Adjabiya, an area they held from March 17 until Saturday, when airstrikes drove them west.

The group cited the electricity director for eastern Libya, Abdal Minam al-Shanti, who said two anti-personnel mines detonated when a truck ran over them, but no one was hurt. Al-Shanti said a civil defense team found and disarmed 24 anti-vehicle mines and an estimated 30 to 40 plastic anti-personnel mines in what Human Rights Watch described as a heavily traveled area.

"Libya should immediately stop using anti-personnel mines, which most of the world banned years ago," said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch.

France — which was the first nation to formally recognize the Libyan rebels — confirmed that a diplomatic presence was established in Benghazi on Tuesday. Foreign Minister Alain Juppe stressed that Antoine Sivan will not be a formal ambassador but rather a diplomat there to establish relations with the Council in Benghazi.

Britain, meanwhile, said it expelled five Libyan diplomats loyal to Gadhafi, including the country's military attache, because of their intimidation of opposition supporters and their potential threat to the U.K.'s national security.

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Associated Press writers David Stringer in London, Slobodan Lekic in Brussels, Angela Charlton in Paris, Godfrey Olukya in Kampala, Uganda, Christopher Bodeen in Beijing and Pauline Jelinek in Washington contributed to this report.

Sitcom vets returning in new shows on TV Land

Count Fran Drescher of "The Nanny" and Wayne Knight of "Seinfeld" among TV veterans returning in new sitcoms.

TV Land network is announcing that Drescher will be back on the air with "Happily Divorced." She will star as a florist who deals with dating after finding out her husband is gay. The network said Monday that "Happily Divorced" will premiere June 15.

A second new sitcom, "The Exes," stars Knight as one of three divorced men who share an apartment across the hall from their divorce attorney, played by Kristen Johnston of "3rd Rock from the Sun." It is slated to debut next winter, along with a second season of "Retired at 35."

TV Land said its first original sitcom, "Hot in Cleveland," will be back with new episodes in June.

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TV Land is owned by Viacom.

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Gartner forecasts 5.6 percent rise in IT spending

Worldwide information technology spending is expected to rise 5.6 percent this year with tablet computers like Apple's iPad helping to drive growth, a technology research company said Wednesday.

Gartner forecast worldwide IT spending of $3.6 trillion in 2011, up from $3.4 trillion last year. It raised its previous forecast of 5.1 percent growth to 5.6 percent.

"This stable forecast outlook comes despite political unrest in the Middle East, while the impact on IT markets of the recent natural disasters in Japan is yet to be fully understood," Gartner said.

The Middle East share of global IT spending is around two percent, according to Gartner.

"While the political unrest affecting many countries in the region may well dent IT spending levels, any impact would be insignificant at the global level," Gartner research vice president Richard Gordon said in a news release.

"We had largely completed our forecast by the time the recent natural disasters in Japan occurred, and we are still evaluating their likely impact on our forecast," Gordon said.

"On this point, we are looking at two potential effects on IT markets as a result of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan: consequences of disruptions in the global electronics supply chain and impacts on IT demand," he said.

Gartner said that, beginning this quarter, it was adding tablet computers to its computing hardware spending estimates, a move which lifted the computing hardware growth outlook from 7.5 percent to 9.5 percent for the year.

"Absent the addition of media tablets, the forecast would have slightly declined in constant-dollar terms; however, with their addition, there's virtually no change in underlying forecast growth at the level of overall IT," Gordon said.

"The addition of media tablets, reinforced by an expected additional decline in the value of the dollar, accounts for the increase in top-line growth," he said.

Gartner projected worldwide spending on tablets to reach $29.4 billion in 2011, up from $9.6 billion in 2010, when Apple was the only significant player in the market.

Gartner said global spending on tablets is expected to increase at an annual average rate of 52 percent through 2015.

Worldwide telecom spending is expected to increase 4.9 percent this year to $2.11 trillion, IT services spending is forecast to grow 5.0 percent to $824 billion while enterprise software spending is expected to rise $7.6 billion to $255 billion.

Benin court clears Yayi second term election win

Benin's highest court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by opposition candidates to annul the West African nation's March 13 presidential election, confirming that incumbent Boni Yayi had won a second term.

Benin, a top regional cotton producer, became the latest African state to face a dispute over its presidential election when Yayi's rivals rejected the results giving him victory, while their supporters took to the streets burning tires and said the vote was rigged.

The president of Benin's Constitutional Court, Robert Dossou, said though there was evidence to support the opposition complaint of some irregularities in the election, it was not enough to call into question the transparency and credibility of the vote.

"The high court definitively proclaims Boni Yayi as the elected president of the republic," Dossou said during a session of the court held to decide on opposition complaints.

Yayi, who won the vote with 53 percent in the first round against 36 percent for challenger Adrien Houngbedji, will take the oath of office on April 6 for his second and final five-year term.

(Reporting Samuel Elijah; Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Giles Elgood)

D.C. school-choice program may find new life with new Congress

A new Congress has brought better prospects for supporters of the D.C. school-choice program abruptly nixed by Congress in 2009.

“We’ve got reason for our hopes to be higher,” said Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairing a Senate committee hearing Wednesday on the D.C.Opportunity Scholarship Program. “We’re just not going to miss any opportunitiesI think we’ve got a real shot at [reinstating the program]this year.”

The scholarship program, which gives more than 1,500 mostly minority and low-income District students $7,500 scholarships to privateschools, was established in a narrow 2004 vote under a Republican congress. It operated with good reviews and good results, according to congressionally mandated studies, until its funding was cut in 2009.

The ensuing row raised by D.C. parents and students led the Obama administration to reinstate funding for students already in the programuntil they graduate, but to discontinue the program for new applicants.

Lieberman noted Wednesday the increased support for the program in the new Congress. An Opportunity Scholarship bill is the first one Speaker John Boehner put his name to in January, and it would fund the program for five years, allow for new participants, and raise the scholarship amount. Lieberman also noted a poll released Wednesday, commissioned by a pro-scholarshipgroup, which found 74 percent of D.C. residents want the program reinstated and expanded.

D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray opposed the voucher program Wednesday, preferring charters and local control, but supported funding it until all current students have graduated. Notably, the poll showing wide support for the program in D.C. was conducted by Gray’s own pollster,Lester & Associates.

Gray softpedaled his objections, no doubt partly because D.C. would likely lose matching funds for public schools and charter schoolsassociated with Opportunity Scholarship funding if the program is allowed to die.

D.C. Council Chairman Kwame Brown, a convert on the voucher issue, spoke about how his personal experiences with scholarship students and parents had convinced him of its worth.

“I believe that the Opportunity Scholarship Program can increase the number of quality education options for low-income families,” Brown said. “The data suggests participants and their entire families are benefiting from this experience.”

The principal investigator for the study Congress mandated when it started the program testified about the program’s results. A division of the Department of Education found students in the program graduated high school at a rate of 91 percent— 21 percent higher than non-scholarship students. Of 13 studies conducted by this division of the Department of Education, only four showed any statistically significant improvements at all, and only one showed greater results than the study of the Opportunity Scholarship Program, said investigator Patrick Wolf.

The House GOP is also looking into alternative ways to fund the program, perhaps through language in the budget continuing resolution the body must pass to keep the government running. The House Oversight Committee will schedule a hearing on the program in the near future, according to someone familiar with the committee’s plans.

“I cannot tell you the number of calls I’ve gotten from parents who are distraught that the government is shuttering the program,” said activist Virginia Walden-Ford, who led the fight during the 2004 passage of the bill. “We must restore this.”

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